


I Fain Would Follow Love

by orphan_account



Series: Episode Tags [2]
Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: F/M, M/M, Season 8 Spoilers, Speculation, internalized ableism, this is basically just Tyrion pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-27
Updated: 2019-03-27
Packaged: 2019-12-18 14:26:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 680
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18251681
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: They are not meant for him. Tyrion knows that.





	I Fain Would Follow Love

**Author's Note:**

> This is based on a season 8 leak, so SPOILERS. Potentially. Title is from "Idylls of the King."

Tyrion pretends not to notice Jon stealing out of Daenerys’s room in the morning. He pretends not to notice their longing looks, the brush of her fingers against the inside of his wrist, the way his cheeks grow pink under the weight of her gaze. If he allows himself to think about it, the raw ache in his chest will become something monstrous.

 

They’re not meant for him. He’s not sure they were ever meant for anybody but each other. The whole world’s flesh and blood, and Jon and Daenerys are dragonglass. If a nasty little beast like Tyrion looks at them sometimes and _wants_ , well–he is in good company. What maid could resist a king as noble and brooding as Jon? What youth wouldn’t give his heart to a woman as valiant and lovely as Daenerys?

 

What does it mean, that Tyrion has already given his heart to them both?

 

Varys stops him one night. The stars are out; the clouds overhead are burnished silver by the moon. Tyrion is very busy staring at them, and so when Varys materializes at his elbow, he can find no smile for his friend.

 

“What do you want,” he says.

 

“To talk.” Varys is using the delicate tone he employs when discussing politics or murder. “Regarding the Warden of the North and Her Grace.”

 

“What about them?”

 

“ _You_ know what,” Varys says, exasperated now. “The way they’ve been carrying on, I’d be surprised if she isn’t with child already.”

 

Tyrion knows better–Daenerys has told him about her first husband, the witch, the monster that came out of her womb–but he’s in no mood to argue with Varys, on this or anything else.

 

“I wonder, would it be another Snow?” Varys muses. “Not if they married, naturally. But as long as they insist on maintaining this charade of disinterest, I suppose we can hardly bring it up.”

 

The clouds, Tyrion realizes, are the exact shade of Daenerys’s hair. He looks away hastily, and meets his friend’s knowing gaze.

 

“What?” he snaps.

 

“I’ve said it before,” Varys murmurs. “If this is what desire does to people, I am very glad to have no part in it.”

 

“The Queen?” Tyrion hopes his voice is appropriately scornful. “It would be like loving a wildfire.”

 

“Men have loved worse,” Varys says dryly. “Look at your brother.”

 

Cersei. Another person Tyrion doesn’t want to think about. Their last conversation was friendlier than any they’ve had for years, but that isn’t exactly saying much. And what he promised her–what he did, in the name of the sad, tattered remnants of his family–he is particularly averse to thinking about _that_. If Varys knew, he’d think Tyrion and well and truly lost his wits.

 

If Varys knew, Tyrion would already be dead.

 

“My brother,” he says, “is a lovelorn fool. I like to imagine that I am less of one.”

 

“Mm,” Varys says. “So do I.”

 

Below them in the ship’s cabins, their people are readying themselves for sleep. Missandei and Grey Worm read together, pressed knee-to-knee in their shared berth; Tyrion walked in on them once, quite by accident, and the ensuing startlement and tangle of sheets resulted in them falling out of bed. The Dothraki guards sing dirty songs around mouthfuls of laughter, passing around triangles of flatbread and improvising as inspiration strikes them. Daenerys waits in her chambers for Jon’s quiet knock, and Tyrion can see them both as clearly as if he were there–the shine of candlelight on her braids; his soft, dark eyes, drinking her in like wine.

 

They are not for him, any more than the clouds that cover the moon. Varys is silent at his elbow, and Tyrion wishes he had clever words for this; he wishes, too, that he had never laid eyes on Daenerys Targaryen, that Myrcella and Tommen still drew breath, that his father were alive so he could kill him again. His desires have always been his downfall, and this is no different.

 

If he were another man–but no. He is a Lannister.


End file.
